


Annette

by GlitterGluwu



Series: C*mmies(sions) [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adoption, Age Difference, Breastfeeding, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/F, F/M, First Time, Grooming, Hand Jobs, Lactation, Lolicon, Making Out, Power Dynamics, Pregnancy, Pseudo-Incest, Threesome - F/F/M, Trauma, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:35:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23721715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterGluwu/pseuds/GlitterGluwu
Summary: Sylvain had comforted her, of course. He would have had to be heartless not to, after as many tearful confessions as she’d fielded from him. He had promised that he would not leave her, that he would help her when the time came and her temptation was put to the test.Even he wasn’t sure exactly which way he would push her when the opportunity arose, however. When Mercedes kissed him like this, when he felt Annette’s curious eyes boring into the side of his head, he privately feared that he would choose the wrong direction.He’d have to be a fool to consider himself a proper moral compass after the life he’d led, after all.-Sylvain and Mercedes adopt the late Baron Dominic's daughter following a tragic accident. Both Mercedes and Annette rely on him in their own ways, but Sylvain has no illusions as to who's really in control.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Mercedes von Martritz, Annette Fantine Dominic/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz/Annette Fantine Dominic
Series: C*mmies(sions) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1264997
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Annette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pissangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissangel/gifts).



> Alright, gonna go ahead and get this out of the way: **LOTTA QUESTIONABLE MORALITY IN THIS ONE LADS READ THE TAGS I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYBODY WHO WILLFULLY IGNORES MY NUMEROUS WARNINGS. THIS ONE'S GOT A COUPLE ADOPTING A KID FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING HER THEIR SEXUAL PARTNER. IF IT AIN'T YOUR THING, BACK AWAY NOW.**
> 
> Alright, where were we? Oh, yes, I loved writing this fic. It took me a long time but it was an absolute delight to work through... I do feel bad for taking so long but the client was way too sweet about it??? Screw you bug you big ol sweetheart ;w;
> 
> I just really love screwed-up dynamics that turn really soft. I hope you guys do too. c: 
> 
> Ages are kept mostly vague, but Annette is meant to be a young teen or preteen and Sylvain is old enough to have inherited the margravate.

Once upon a time, the margrave of house Gautier had had a reputation as an altogether nonreligious man; however much emphasis his father had placed on the importance of Crests, the religious aspect of that attachment had ostensibly been secondary for him. The local priests would have been lucky to see him and the rest of the Gautier family on the most holy days of the calendar, let alone every Sunday.

Well, Sylvain made it a point to be everything his father hadn’t been, yes, but the credit for his newfound devotion actually went to his wife.

Mercedes had a few tricks up her sleeve, after all - tricks that even he couldn’t have anticipated the wider effects of. She assured him a number of times that she would have attended Sunday service with or without him, then proceeded to hint that his path to peace with Sreng would be more popularly accepted in his territory if he forged bonds with the commoners. 

Now, after a year of marriage, he found her counsel had been well-placed; he was no longer greeted as a superior under the watchful eyes of their goddess. No, the assembly greeted him warmly when he walked in, shaking hands and asking after his recent business. Perhaps this - coercing him into living on eye level with the people of his territory in order to understand the daily struggles they faced - had been part of Mercedes’s plan, too.

He found his seat with a pleasant smile on his face, delighted as ever to have Mercedes by his side. She stroked his hand with a warm weight, exchanging a gentle look with him. He had never been so grateful to have anyone in his life, he thought, taking a moment to consider the soft color of her eyes before kissing her temple and turning forward, ready to listen.

Just as the priest stepped up to the pulpit to begin his sermon, however, Sylvain heard a small cluster of footsteps emerging from one of the side entrances. He turned to follow the sound, feeling his breath catch in his throat when he saw a nun emerge, tailed by a small group of children. Those would be the refugees from the Dominic territory; he placed a hand over his heart and felt his gut curl with sympathy.

Mercedes seemed to catch on to his distraction and followed his gaze as the children sat together. She covered her mouth and exchanged a look with Sylvain and he recalled a discussion they’d had a few times about adopting before they had children of their own. He gave her a brief nod, confirming that he was of the same mind - the scenario couldn’t have been more perfect. He kept his eyes trained on the group, knowing it was hardly the time for it but unable to curb his curiosity.

There was a girl among them, one with pale red hair and wide blue eyes. Sylvain knew that the late Baron Dominic had had red hair, and that his daughter had survived the fires that had ravaged the territory - that couldn’t be _her,_ could it?

He knew how the Gautier gene pool worked - the violent red of their hair rarely diluted itself, but he couldn’t help but think, if his and Mercedes’s hair colors were to blend, it might look something like the girl’s. Just by watching her, he found himself charmed by her fidgeting and by her pretty eyes as they glanced around: up to the vaulted ceiling, around at the stained glass windows, and then in his direction, catching on his gaze.

He offered her a smile and a wave and she looked away, sat up straight and stared ahead at the pulpit as if he’d caught her doing something naughty. He smothered a laugh into his palm as she cast a couple more nervous glances his way, and Mercedes gave him a short, tight-lipped smile. No, she was right - it was time to focus and offer his praises to the goddess.

The moment the service ended, however, Mercedes took his hand and strode purposefully toward the childrens’ minder; he felt excitement flare inside him, or perhaps anxiety. He knew it would likely take some time before the church allowed an adoption to go through, even for the overseers of their territory, but the thought that their future child could be standing in familiar pews was nonetheless a thrill.

“Excuse me,” Mercedes spoke, and the nun turned to her. “I didn’t know the parish was taking in orphans.”

“Yes, we don’t usually… these children are from the Dominic territory,” the nun replied with a sad look. Sylvain had figured, but it still struck him; their pain was so fresh… “We don’t generally take them in, as we don’t have many resources to help, but local orphanages were so overburdened.”

“I don’t know if this is overstepping bounds,” Sylvain posited, and Mercedes gave him an approving glance as he continued, “but the margravine and I have been talking about adopting for some time now. It may be a little early, but we’d be happy at least to foster until things have settled down.”

The nun was clearly taken aback, but she didn’t hesitate for long. She cleared her throat and stammered, “Well, your grace, we appreciate your kindness. If you’re looking to adopt a younger child or a baby, though -”

“An older child will do just fine,” Mercedes assured her in a gentle voice. “I myself may never have arrived where I am today if my adoptive father had turned up his nose at the prospect of adopting someone older.”

The nun clasped her hands, her forehead creasing in concern, and at long last she sighed. “There may be… one child in particular. You’ve likely heard that the Baron himself lost his life, and - well, I’d hate for poor Annette’s Crest to fall into unworthy hands.”

Sylvain couldn’t help how his eye twitched at that, but Mercedes was as graceful as ever when she tilted her head and smiled. “We’d be happy to assist,” she said sweetly, “May we meet her?”

The nun dipped her head with a quick “Of course” before turning and calling for the girl. Sylvain smiled when the same redhead he’d been teasing earlier approached, eyes wide; he waved again, much like he had at the beginning of the sermon, and she ducked her head in a half-bow. Perhaps she’d seen him or his father at some public function and knew who he was already.

It was as if every impulse he’d ever learned in regards to speaking with children had evacuated his mind - and he was _good_ with kids, he’d grown up good with kids, but as the nun introduced them he felt his heart pounding into his throat, rendering him mute. It was all he could do to smile at her, feeling tension welling in his chest when the nun asked if she would feel comfortable spending some time at their estate.

Mercedes, as always, was his guardian angel. She offered Annette her hand and bent down to the girl’s level as she shook it, smiling as warmly as ever when she said, “I understand that we couldn’t hope to replace your parents, but I hope we can offer you a happy home.”

A flicker of uncertainty passed over Annette’s expression, but ultimately she nodded, giving Mercedes a small, short-lived smile of her own. She didn’t let go of her newfound foster mother all the way out to their carriage, but she did cast a few nervous - or perhaps curious - glances at him.

He was too caught up in the moment, too stunned at the speed with which this had all been set in motion, to say much, but there was a niggling thought on his mind as Annette gratefully cuddled up to Mercedes’s side inside the carriage.

Mercedes had confessed to certain proclivities when they’d discussed adoption before, after all. It was upon receiving his first, shy simper from Annette that he started to wonder just how far those would progress.

* * *

It only took a couple weeks for everything to sort itself into a new routine; as surprised as the staff at the Gautier estate had been at the new, sudden addition, it was hardly much trouble to adjust portion sizes and get her set up in her room. They’d been preparing for an adoption for awhile, after all, and had been mindful that the room might become occupied by someone of any age, so it only took a few adjustments before Annette could properly call it home.

The staff warmed up to the new lady of the house quickly, and how could they not? Annette was warm and sweet in all the best ways, in how she wandered the halls of the family home singing under her breath and swearing anyone who encountered her to secrecy and how she eagerly dove into any new learning endeavor. It wasn’t long at all before Sylvain understood just how intelligent she was and took to discussing theoretical tactics with her as a way of bonding; she had been quite avoidant in his presence for the first week or so, but discussions like these gradually helped them grow closer.

He had nothing on Mercedes, though. Annette and herself were glued at the hip from the first night; Mercedes sat by her bed and spoke with her long into the evening, promising that she would be there no matter what. Annette was clearly starstruck by Mercedes’s numerous magical talents, too. She was the Baron’s kid, so she’d been trained on axes - which of course made Sylvain question where the family Relic ended up in all the confusion - but she begged Mercedes to teach her reason before long.

To put it simply, the acclimation couldn’t have gone better.

Mercedes was touchier with Annette around; she explained that it was to demonstrate a warm, healthy home environment for their new addition, and Sylvain could scarce object. He exchanged eager kisses with his wife whenever Annette was in the room, only somewhat surprised when Mercedes descended to attend to his neck for a couple additional smooches before returning to their daughter.

That night was little different: Sylvain was holed up alone in his study after dinner, poring over reports from around the territory, until Mercedes entered the room with Annette in tow. “Dear,” she tutted, arriving at his side and delicately draping herself over the arm of his chair, “You’re going to strain your eyes if you keep reading without proper light.” She picked up his reading glasses from the tabletop and settled them on his face with a kiss to his forehead. “Especially without these.”

He sighed into her space and let his eyes flutter closed, resting his aching head on her chest just for a moment. “You’re right,” he conceded, then added, “As always.”

Mercedes giggled into his hair. He felt her turn her head and say, “Let this be a lesson, Annie. Curious girls who read in the dark have to wear glasses, just like Daddy.”

He’d nearly forgotten Annette was even there; he jerked away from Mercedes’s chest, thinking briefly that this was hardly appropriate behavior to exhibit in front of a child. When he looked at Annette, however, he saw her leaning over the back of the sofa and watching them closely without a hint of shame. Her gaze travelled over Mercedes’s bust and Sylvain couldn’t help but wonder.

“Don’t worry, Mercedes,” Sylvain deflected, pushing himself out of his chair and stretching luxuriantly. “Annie and I can keep an eye out for each other, right?” he finished, sending Annette a grin while he tapped the rim of his glasses. She giggled at the wordplay while Mercedes wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, pulling him down for a proper kiss.

It was times like this that his mind lingered on the confessions Mercedes had spoken into the dark, back before Annette had arrived - dark confessions, where she related her desire for anyone she could treat with a heavy dose of maternal, as well as sexual, affection. She had whispered, sounding as fearful as he’d ever heard her, that she felt sexual desire for children - _young_ children - and that, given an opportunity, she wasn’t sure she could resist.

Sylvain had comforted her, of course. He would have had to be heartless not to, after as many tearful confessions as she’d fielded from him. He had promised that he would not leave her, that he would help her when the time came and her temptation was put to the test.

Even he wasn’t sure exactly which way he would push her when the opportunity arose, however. When Mercedes kissed him like this, when he felt Annette’s curious eyes boring into the side of his head, he privately feared that he would choose the wrong direction.

He’d have to be a fool to consider himself a proper moral compass after the life he’d led, after all.

Mercedes’s breath blew wet heat over his dampened lips when she pulled away. When he met her eyes, he thought he saw a secret muted heat, that steely composure so well-concealed under layer upon layer of cottony gentleness that he had taken so long to recognize. Mercedes was a beacon of control that had effortlessly grounded what had once been a life of sin and self-doubt; it was, in no small part, what he loved about her.

She turned her head and let it fall forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder and directing a sweet smile at Annette. Sylvain looked over as well when Mercedes said “Perhaps we can all take some time to read together tonight,” and noticed that Annette’s expression had fallen.

He peeled away from his wife, feeling alarm stirring in his chest, and asked, “Hey, what’s up?” while he paced over to Annette, who blinked rapidly as if she was surprised he’d noticed. Mercedes trailed along close after.

“Oh. I just… Sometimes, you guys make me think of my birth parents,” Annette admitted in a low voice, cracking on the final syllables. Sylvain felt a sympathetic lump rise in his throat as she struggled to add, “I’ve been having fun here! But I miss them.”

It was an understandable struggle, of course, but he was utterly at a loss as to how to approach it; Sylvain’s relationship to the majority of his family was poor enough that the only death he’d truly _mourned_ out of them was his mother. He cast a glance back at Mercedes for help, and the gentle smile on her face gave him enough comfort to extend a hand and stroke Annette’s hair. Mercedes arrived at her side and clasped Annette’s hand in hers while their daughter blinked back tears.

“Now, Annie, none of that,” Mercedes whispered, approaching around the side of the loveseat and settling down. Annette turned with Mercedes’s motion and sat properly, leaning easily into her touch as she took up the task of stroking her hair. Sylvain followed, placing himself on Annette’s opposite side as Mercedes continued, “Grief is a natural reaction to what you’ve experienced, and you can’t help the way you feel. But we can offer a distraction, if that’s what you need right now.”

Sylvain nodded, though Annette couldn’t see him, leaning as she was into Mercedes’s bosom. He heard her high, broken voice mumble, “Yes, please.”

He searched his mind for a suitable topic, but Mercedes, as ever, was better prepared than him. “You like learning, don’t you? Let us teach you something.” She paused to tap her chin and her eyes met his, sending a jolt of recognition through him; that steely determination he’d seen earlier had only deepened. He wasn’t at all surprised to hear her suggest, “Would you like to learn how to kiss?”

Sylvain almost lost Annette’s answer to the intensity of Mercedes’s gaze. There were mixed emotions coiling inside him, urging him to interfere but alternately, in a distant way, disappointed that she’d chosen to start at this level. He could feel Annette’s warmth on the loveseat next to him, so close and so far, and he could also feel Mercedes seeking his approval in that subtle way that she would never put into words. If he was going to put a stop to this, the time was now.

Annette’s gaze landed on him. She whispered something, as if she were trying to say it to Mercedes alone: “With Margrave Gautier?”

She still called him that sometimes, although she’d long since grown used to calling Mercedes “Mommy”, and with the tension of the present situation it brought him an uneasy feeling. Mercedes was quick to correct her - “He’s Daddy, Annie, don’t be shy” - and he realized that he wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to hold them back.

Mercedes turned from him and kissed Annette’s hair. “With either of us, if you’d like,” she said, performing her usual maternal demeanor without a trace of hesitation. “We can demonstrate, if you need it.”

Annette was quiet for a moment, and Sylvain felt a subtle edge of dread - Annette wasn’t exactly a loudmouth, but she was absentminded enough that even if she didn’t mean to tattle the information might leak anyway. He wondered if she was horrified by the mere proposal, whether she would sneak away at the next church service and expose them, but then - then she gave him that familiar, ever-curious look, and said, “Yeah, could I watch? Just to be sure?”

“Of course you may, dear,” Mercedes said, smooth and unruffled, and eased Annette into her lap before edging over to him. Her soothing hand was his guide, rather than vision; he couldn’t take his eyes off of Annette even as he felt the first touch of Mercedes’s soft mouth. Annette was so enraptured, those childlike eyes of hers so innocent - it felt like torture to tear his own away and part his lips for his wife, even as much as he longed to do more, to plunge deeper. He tasted just a hint of laughter from Mercedes, as if she knew and could not have been more pleased.

There would once have been a time when he would have been loath to forfeit control in this way, but there was something to the _order_ that Mercedes offered that he couldn’t resist; he’d learned things about both of them in her bed and prime among those was her ability to influence him in subtle ways. He wondered as her tongue traced elegantly over his teeth whether the longing he felt was hers or his own, and whether there was truly any difference.

She parted from him with a final kiss to the corner of his mouth, leaving his lips slick and cold by comparison, and looked to Annette for approval. Their daughter was staring with her mouth slightly agape, still settled on Mercedes’s lap, apparently content just to watch.

“Would you like to try now?” Mercedes said, and Sylvain hadn’t felt this nervous for a sensual escapade since the tender age at which he’d lost his own virginity. How old had he been - twelve? Thirteen?

With a model like that, he could hardly be blamed for caving to Mercedes, he realized. More revelations he’d have to dissect further at a later time, preferably with Mercedes’s help, preferably in the privacy of their marital bed.

For now, Annette was nodding, looking all too eager, and Sylvain nearly sat back, ready to watch as Mercedes lived out her fantasy at last - but Annette followed his retreat, pushing up onto her knees to elevate herself to his level, and clumsily met his lips. He gasped, pained, into the impact and she fell back with a blurted “Sorry!”

“That’s - You didn’t get my nose, at least,” he chuckled uncomfortably. He hadn’t expected to be the first trial, but at a glance, Mercedes at least didn’t seem bothered; she leaned back onto the arm of the loveseat, her lips curled in amusement, and his heart pounded. There was a startling but not unfamiliar exhibitionistic thrill coursing through him at the idea of her taking pleasure in watching them. “I’ve definitely had worse first kisses.”

“I’m so sorry,” Annette moaned anyway, covering her mouth in shame. “I’ve never… Wait, how many have you had?”

“More than you’d like to know,” Mercedes murmured. Was that _impatience_ he heard? From _Mercedes?_ He might have teased her in any other scenario. “Try again, Annie.”

Annette set her jaw in a determined stance, nodded, and came forward. Sylvain let her make first contact again, careful not to push too hard or too much; there was something alternately compelling and disconcerting about the tension he could sense in his wife, and it took all he had not to let it distract him. He felt her eyes on them even as he tilted his head, parting his lips, feeling Annette shiver around a moan.

It was then that Annette shifted forward, sliding more into his lap than Mercedes’s, and he gasped despite himself. His hands came forward as if on instinct, settling on the curve of her waist, and he was overcome at the thought of how _small_ she was, how very slight. Her hair was loose and tickling his face and every faint brush he felt against his cheek as he worked her open tortured him for want of running his fingers through it. The first brush of his fingers against her soft, youthful cheek made his heart flutter, and it was all he could do to pull away and brush several firm, wet kisses along that smooth plane, smiling into the giggles Annette let loose.

“Daddy,” she said, barely a rasp in his ear, and oh, flames take him, he wanted her.

He had mixed feelings when he felt Mercedes at his side, coaxing Annette away with a soft word and a gentle touch. There was a kind of relief, yes, but another feeling of need and overwhelm. Mercedes took Annette in her arms with a relaxed sort of ease and Sylvain fell back to watch, free to appreciate the noises they passed between them until Annette at last retreated downward, her lips stained red from the pressure and her cheeks the same color. 

He hadn’t grown up in the care of the church as Mercedes had, reared with the fear of what came after death looming over him, but the arousal he felt when Annette’s curious gaze landed on the tent he was pitching had him all but certain he was destined for nowhere good.

* * *

Sylvain didn’t know that he could rightfully claim that he had ever truly enjoyed being on the giving end of oral sex before Mercedes, but it had long since become an act almost as comforting as drinking her milk. It always began the same, with Mercedes taking on as maternal an air as ever, but over time he wore her down, drinking in the muted sounds of her losing her iron grip on her control.

The sensation was almost addicting, that of spreading her open and flattening his tongue against her entrance. She tasted of rusted metal, a taste that coated his tongue in a cloying way, lingering even as he worked his lips up the inside of her slit. Her gasps were so addictive that he didn’t even notice the creak of their bedroom door opening.

“Oh, Annie,” Mercedes breathed, and for a split second Sylvain assumed she was entrenched in fantasy, one he was more than happy to entertain. “Is something wrong, dear?”

He nearly answered as if he were Annette himself, but then he heard a familiar, peppy voice - “Just hungry!” - and jerked to attention, flying back from Mercedes’s sex, meeting his daughter’s eye as his heart raced. He started toward the covers, acting on instinct, meaning to cover Mercedes up, but -

But Mercedes’s palm met his forearm, forestalling him long enough for her to beckon Annette closer. She welcomed Annette into her soft torso without a hint of hesitation, seeming to ignore the curious glance Annette sent his way, guiding her to her breast and letting her suck.

“Your father’s been busy, so I may not have much,” she said, silken, altogether unbothered, and Sylvain felt as if all his mental paths were crossing at once. Annette seemed to take to Mercedes’s nipple without any of the hesitation he might have expected from her; she latched with a glide of her tongue over the areola and an eager moan, then blinked slowly, peering at him out of the corner of her eye.

They’d almost certainly done this before - he was just deceiving himself if he told himself any different. But as he watched, he realized he couldn’t find it in himself to care. There was something tantalizing about watching her nuzzle into the gentle droop of Mercedes’s breast, and if he hadn’t already been deeply aroused he was sure he would’ve been by now.

Fingers met the curve of his jaw, guiding him forward almost above his notice. “Carry on, sweetheart,” Mercedes commanded, and it only distantly registered that she was speaking to him. So intense was the eye contact he shared with Annette, so compelling, that he only broke it when he tasted Mercedes again, even stronger than before. He felt that slick wetness smear over his bottom lip as he closed his eyes in reverence, inhaling her thick, overpowering scent, melting into her gentle but immutable control.

He could hear the difference now, pressing down on him with greater power with his eyes closed. He heard the clicking in how Annette sucked, drawing whatever milk Mercedes still had out of her, and he heard how Mercedes held her cries back, only betraying how aroused she was in the volume of her slick and how firmly she grasped at his hair.

Annette broke away from Mercedes’s breast before she spoke into the expectant air. “What’s Daddy doing?” she asked, and Mercedes tittered.

His arm curled around Mercedes’s thigh, his sluggish mind searching for a reasonable explanation, but Mercedes, as always, was first to offer her answer. “He’s,” she murmured, pausing to shudder, and continued, “H-he’s making me feel very good. He’s wonderful at it.”

Sylvain looked up at Mercedes, at the flush riding high on her cheeks, and felt tense excitement in him as she asked, “Do you want to give it a try, Annie?”

He paused, tasting his heart in the back of his throat as Annette considered the question. It had been hardly a week since he and Annette had made out in front of his wife and every day he lingered on it, encouraged by Mercedes’s whispers in their bed. No, he wouldn’t refuse if Annette asked him to be her first again - he was all but certain of it now, for all that it made him as guilty as anything he’d ever experienced.

The conflicting desires in him only mounted when Annette met Mercedes’s eye and nodded, shifting in her grip. It was tantalizing, the visual of them side by side - Annette still so slim, still earning back the weight she’d lost in the hungry months between Dominic territory and their own, and Mercedes full and round by contrast. Annette’s dresses obscured her lankiness, but it still shone through in her slim thighs, in the boniness of her wrists. Sylvain made a note to ask his chef to give her larger portions in the future - she was fattening up, but she had a ways to go.

Mercedes wiggled back as if inviting Annette to bridge the gap between them, to offer herself to him. Sylvain licked his lips unconsciously, his heart pounding at the thought that Annette was that close, that he’d soon be able to taste her mingling with Mercedes on his tongue but -

But Annette seemed to pause midway, only just having started to hike up her skirt and get in position. She met his eye for a quick, tense moment, then squeaked and turned away. Sylvain blinked as she smothered her face in Mercedes’s bosom, but Mercedes only seemed all the more amused for it.

“Are you not ready?” Mercedes murmured, rubbing at Annette’s shoulder. He watched Annette’s toes curl inside her socks, her feet tucked under her butt.

Annette shook her head, just a faint little movement. Her shoulders raised as she took a deep breath, then she mumbled, as if embarrassed, “Could you do it instead? I don’t know if…”

Sylvain’s heart sank.

Mercedes spared him a sympathetic look. “Because he’s a boy?” she suggested, and Annette groaned.

“Don’t say it like _that,”_ she grumbled, all but confirming Mercedes’s conjecture, and Sylvain huffed with relief and mirth. “It’s embarrassing! I just - even my birth father never… Saw me.”

The admission should have given him pause. He should have stopped to consider the things they were doing, perhaps even put a stop to it at long last. Instead, his cock twitched.

“I can turn away,” he offered at half-volume. Annette snuck him a glance, and he smiled as if on reflex, seeking to comfort her in whatever way he could. “Anything for you, Annie.”

“And you don’t have to undress all the way either, dear,” Mercedes tacked on, seeming to surprise Annette. “I can pull down your underwear and go under your skirt.”

Annette paused, then, at long last, assented. “Okay.” She turned to him, fidgeting all the while. “Could you…”

“No problem,” he said, and turned away. He leaned his shoulders back on the mattress, only feeling all the more tense for it as he listened to Mercedes maneuvering Annette into position, to the rustling of the sheets under their moving bodies.

The first moan was enough to make him gasp, too. He palmed his bulge and let his eyes flutter closed as he listened to Annette’s voice escape her without a trace of control, high and loud and untethered. Mercedes shushed her, but it accomplished little - Annette’s cries only increased in volume, tearing out of her such that it became absolute agony forcing himself not to look.

But that was arousing in its own way, wasn’t it? Like listening without permission, like sneaking a peek into the women’s baths as a teenager. What kind of power did it take, he asked himself, to force Margrave Gautier out of his own bed?

Annette’s innocence regarding his own exposure to women, to their parts, was also its own kind of alluring. It was for that reason that he didn’t pull his cock out of his pants when he began touching himself in earnest - every cry from his daughter behind him was a reminder not to push his luck, to trust in the implicit boundaries she’d erected. Mercedes paused long enough to let Annette catch her breath, and Sylvain released a breathy moan as he ground into his hand, thumbing at the head of his cock.

“Is this okay, sweetie?” Mercedes asked, and for a moment the only sound was high, breathless gasping.

“Y-yes,” Annette said at last. He heard a couple clicks, kisses, and Annette’s breath stuttered. “What’s - wh-what’s he doing?”

He paused. Mercedes chuckled. “Oh, Daddy just needs a little help. Don’t worry,” she hummed, and a couple fingers reached over the edge of the mattress to stroke his hair, “I’ll attend to him once we’re finished.”

* * *

Everything had escalated so quickly that Sylvain hardly knew what to do with himself.

There was a part of him that continually lambasted himself for this perceived weakness; it was just _sex,_ just a meaningless act that happened to feel good. He should by all means have been used to it by now, desensitized to the point where he could leave the bedroom _in_ the bedroom and go about his day. There was no need for him to obsess over what they’d done, or what they continued to do.

The problem was that it was always in the light of day that his preoccupations - these mingled feelings of guilt and of desire - plagued him most. It was when Annette clung nervously to his horse’s mane on her first practice ride or when she gave him a grateful hug after he praised her singing. He felt all the things he’d expected to feel, the paternalistic affection and warmth, but that was rarely where the feelings stopped - and now, Annette had the tools to recognize how he was feeling and when.

He wasn’t one to miss that glint of curiosity in her eye when he sprung an erection while picking her up to cross a puddle; he hadn’t been that naive since before he was her age.

“You’re troubled,” Mercedes said, startling him out of his reverie. He turned his gaze away from the careful workings of her crochet hook to where she sat up, propped against the headboard of their shared bed. She cocked her head, gazing at him as she let her hook, and the horse blanket she was in the midst of making, rest. “What’s the matter?”

He heaved a sigh, crossing his arms and leaning back, gazing down at the foot of their bed. Their bedroom door was closed, but there was still this edge of paranoia in his head, perhaps egged on by the knowledge that this had once been his father’s room, his father’s bed. It didn’t hit him as often anymore, no, but the memories could be hard to ignore when they resurfaced. “Thinking about her,” he admitted.

“Oh? Shall we call her in, then?”

Sylvain picked at their quilt, still staring unseeingly at the opposite wall. “It’s not right,” he intoned, “What we do.”

He heard Mercedes hum. She wound up her yarn and set her project aside before scooting up to his side and leaning against his shoulder. “Tell me more, Sylvain,” she said, featherlight, as if he hadn’t expressed doubt in the very pursuit he had promised to support her in. She wound her fingers together with his and he gratefully squeezed her hand.

Sylvain puzzled over where to begin. He leaned his head on hers, sighed, and whispered, “I just - can’t stop thinking about it. Her.”

Mercedes hummed again, rubbing at his upper arm, almost encouraging. “What about her?”

“Even in innocent moments, I...” he stopped. There was heat coiling in several places at once - his throat, but his gut too, embodying the exact conflict he’d been struggling with over the past weeks. He squeezed Mercedes’s hand again, and she seemed to understand.

She shifted next to him, pushing upwards, and then she slung a leg over his lap, pressing in close. He sighed into the softness of her collar, gratefully sliding his palms over the rolls at her sides. She was so warm, even through her nightgown.

“It doesn’t have to be the way it was for you,” she purred, cradling the back of his head in her palm, lacing her fingers through his hair. “It doesn’t have to end in hatred and fear. We’ll never force her into anything she doesn’t want.”

His shoulders pitched upward of their own accord; the sob that dragged itself out of his throat almost hurt. Mercedes cooed under her breath, comforting him with an “oh, sweetheart” before loosening the strap of her nightgown, exposing her breast. He went gratefully, forming his lips around her nipple in a gesture of familiarity that granted him instant comfort.

She continued petting his hair, consoling him in a low, smooth voice. Her opposing hand found his side, stroked around to his stomach, then down, cupping his stiffening cock over his sleepwear. She murmured meaningless words, impressing normality upon him with every “Hush” and “Settle” and drop of warm, sweet milk on his tongue. Sylvain inhaled into her touch as she tugged at the laces to his pants, brushing the fabric out of the way and clasping his dick in her hand.

“We’ll all take care of each other,” she whispered, coaxing his foreskin back and circling a fingertip around his head, making him gasp into the smoothness of her skin. It amazed him, even knowing what he did about her routines, just how soft she was. “You’re not alone any longer. We can help you.”

His next sound made a trickle of milk fall from his lips, running over his chin and smearing on her breast. She tittered, “Oh, dear,” and dipped down to kiss the crown of his head, still pulling slowly but persistently at his cock. Sylvain leaned into this vulnerability that she so effortlessly offered, his brain filled with cotton, his entire being encompassed in warmth. He’d never understood quite what it was about Mercedes that coaxed this side of him into the light, but now was hardly the time to investigate; no, he let himself fall deeper as she pumped his cock, exerting her firm, pleasant pressure.

“She seemed curious about this, last time we were all together,” Mercedes whispered. He sucked harder, whimpering, pressing the flat of his tongue into his next pass like he was trying to memorize every bump of her areola. “Imagine what she’ll feel like around you.”

More milk dribbled over his chin when he came, smothering his cries into her chest.

* * *

Mercedes coaxed him into a deep, dreamless sleep, a welcome reprieve from the tossing and turning he’d suffered ever since their relationship with their daughter had taken a sexual turn. So deep was it, in fact, that when he awoke to find warm bodies on either side of him instead of just the one, he didn’t think to question it until he heard a faint sniffle and felt a nudge against his upper arm.

Sylvain’s body turned before his mind was conscious enough to tell him why. His eyes burned when he opened them, but they obeyed long enough to afford him a look at Annette’s teary face. He held up his arm and she ducked under it, curling readily against his chest. “Annie,” he rumbled, and she released a long, shuddering breath. “Bad dream?”

“Mhm.” Her fingers curled into his sleep shirt. Even as deep asleep as he’d been, his heart broke for her.

“You’re safe,” he promised. He kissed her forehead, and her bangs tickled his chin. “I’ve got you.”

He cradled the back of her head in his palm, smoothing his thumb back and forth in a soothing rhythm. Mercedes had braided Annette’s hair into pigtails before bed, but sleep had loosened them and strands of hair shifted pleasantly under his fingertips. She relaxed slowly into his touch, breathing a slow, heavy sigh as she did, and for a moment he felt warm sleep threaten to wash over him again.

“I dreamt - about the fire,” she mumbled, pulling him out of his doze. His eyelids were still heavy, but he forced them open to pan down the rolling blues and blacks of his darkened sheets and find the part of her hair. Her face was still pressed into his chest when he at last placed exactly what fire she was talking about.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” he whispered, and she hiccuped hard enough that he could feel her shoulders jerk. He searched for something he could say, anything he could do to make it better, but there was this persistent knowledge inside that told him that no matter how many promises he made, he could never replace the family she’d lost.

It’s not for us to replace them, Mercedes had told him once. The best we can do is give her all the love we have and hope that it reaches her.

He pressed his nose into her hair, holding her as tightly as he dared. A sound emerged from her throat, low and mournful, and he said, “Do you want to tell me about it? Or…”

Sylvain felt her ribcage expand with her next intake of breath. She sobbed on the exhale and he wondered whether this was it, he would just hold her while she cried it out, and then she choked, “I just remember - Father carrying me out to the canal and telling me to stay.” The following breath was high and reedy and he moved his hand, rubbing circles into her back. “And I stayed there all night in water up to my waist. And people kept running out to join me. But it was never my family...”

She trailed off in time for Sylvain to register shifting behind him. Mercedes turned, draped her arm over his side, and apparently detected Annette there. With a vague gesture of her hand, warm light washed over the room.

“Annie?” she mumbled in much the same tone as he had earlier. Annette sniffed rather inelegantly into his shirt. “Sweetheart, are you alright?”

He felt Mercedes against the back of his neck, Annette with her face still mashed into his chest moving her arm up and over his side until she found Mercedes’s and grasped it. It was a calming, sweet sort of closeness that made his heart sing with an understated feeling of affection.

Now would be the worst time to get aroused, he thought to himself, and as if he’d learned magic overnight, that was all it took.

He didn’t dare move for fear that Annette would feel it and pull away, but her small, lithe body was so _warm._ Her thigh grazed it and he drew in a sharp breath, then he heard a titter.

“Well, Annie, if you’re in need of a distraction again, it seems like Daddy’s more than ready,” Mercedes teased, moving hers and Annette’s conjoined hands lower. He swallowed, feeling tension in every quarter; however much Mercedes had comforted him a few short hours ago, the split second of indecision Annette took was enough to bring him renewed anxiety.

At last, he heard a voice rumbling against his chest. “Could I have a snack, too?” she piped up, and he must have sighed a little louder than he’d realized because Mercedes disconnected her hand from Annette’s and settled it comfortingly on his back.

“Of course you may,” Mercedes said, and Sylvain felt a brush over the back of his neck: a kiss. He could feel as her lips curled into a smile. “I can take care of that, if Daddy would attend to the distraction?”

There were still nerves pressing on the edge of his awareness. His next question would have been whether Annette would like that, but he was silenced by her arching her neck, looking up at him. “Yeah,” she said shyly, “I think that’s what I want.” 

If Mercedes was the only one in Fódlan who could bring him to tears without fail, he realized that Annette was likewise the only one who could stun him into silence with equal success. His lips parted, but it was as if there was a block in his throat, silencing him until Annette pushed upward and kissed that willing gap. She was still breathing heavier than usual, still unsteady, but she cheekily nibbled his lip before parting from him once again.

She nodded firmly, her brow resolving in a straight, determined line. “Okay,” she said, brought herself to her knees, and slapped her cheeks as if snapping herself into focus. “Okay!”

That, if nothing else, brought an indulgent smile to his face. He went to say something again, but ultimately closed his mouth and offered her a nod. “If you’re okay, Annie, so am I,” he said, and she shifted on her heels.

“I need to get over you, though,” she cleared her throat. He snickered a little and laid flat, allowing her to clamber over him and only jerking a little when her shin brushed the tent he was pitching.

He saw Annette smother a giggle into her palm when she glanced down at it; as much as he wanted to pout, he found her reaction more endearing than anything. “You really think it’s that funny, huh?” he prodded, jabbing a finger into her side to hear her outburst of laughter. “It’s just a body part, kid.”

“That’s not it!” Annette rushed to defend herself, and as much as Sylvain hadn’t known her to be much of a blusher he could detect a hint of red in her cheeks even in the low light. She sent another glance at his bulge and he raised his eyebrows.

“It’s natural to be curious,” Mercedes cut in, adjusting her nightgown in the same way as she had earlier that night. The smile she directed at him was more lascivious than she generally allowed to show, and it hit all the more powerfully for it; “I’m sure yours is among the first she’s seen, after all.”

The mere suggestion of it made him suck in another breath, instantly cowed, as ever, by the certainty - and the suggestion - in his wife’s voice. She always settled into it all so easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and this was no exception - she lounged on one elbow and beckoned Annette closer, holding her head to steady her landing. Annette started sucking with little preamble, and watching them, Sylvain thought privately that when he and Mercedes had children of their own, she and Annette would both be wonderful in their respective roles.

Mercedes turned her gaze to him once Annette was situated, the corner of her mouth quirked as if in question. He drew in closer, feeling hot at the memory of what Mercedes had suggested before.

Maybe tonight was when they’d see just how good it was.

He grazed Mercedes’s lips with his own before settling in behind Annette, curling his arm over her straight waist and kissing experimentally at the back of her neck. He heard her grunt in encouragement and carried on, pressing forward, tracing behind her ear before sucking gently on her lobe. He was so entranced by all the curves in his field of vision - of Annette’s cheek, of Mercedes’s breast, of the dark crescent of Annette’s eyelash - that Mercedes startled him when next she spoke.

“Annie,” she whispered, “Do you think you’re ready for Daddy to try touching you?”

He felt Annette stiffen underneath his hand and he rubbed her side as if on instinct, wanting, suddenly, to offer her assurance. “I’ve seen a lot more girl parts than you’ve seen boy parts,” he explained, just a hint of an embarrassed chuckle emerging alongside it, “I promise, nothing you have going on down there is going to surprise me.”

He saw just a hint of blue iris out of the corner of her eye before she looked away. Her head bobbed - barely perceptible, but definitely a nod, and he didn’t know how in Fodlan Mercedes had been so _calm_ when she’d been granted permission because he was about to lose his damned head.

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised, feeling, for the millionth time, as if he’d regressed to a version of himself much more virginal in nature. He steeled himself, trying to shake that feeling away before he smoothed his hand down the soft plane of Annette’s stomach. She hardly needed him to be as nervous as she was - he was meant to be the firm but loving guiding hand, just as Mercedes was, not just another preteen tripping over himself.

Her thigh was soft, concealed as it was beneath the silken fabric of her nightgown. Sylvain brushed one of her plaits aside and nuzzled into the nape of her neck before pulling the skirt up and out of the way. He heard the tiniest squeak smothered into Mercedes’s breast at the exposure, then another when he traced light fingertips up to the lower hem of her underwear. She was outright hiccuping into Mercedes’s skin now and it instantly endeared her to him even more than she already had been; he softly hushed her in the same breath as his wife did and met Mercedes’s eye over top of Annette’s head, joined with her in the intimate thrill that was teasing Annette this way.

Her undies were made of light fabric, light enough that he could easily feel her slit through them. He’d longed for a glance when Mercedes had had her way with her, but it was a brand new ordeal feeling her shivering against him, twitching at the slightest provocation, at the faintest hint of pressure to part her folds and probe between. Sylvain knew she likely _could_ cope with more direct touch from having heard them the first time, but there was this distant desire within him to draw it out as much as he was able, savor it the way he couldn’t as long as he touched her directly, and he was loath to deny it.

Annette, for her part, didn’t disappoint; it only took him circling at the top of her slit, seeking out her clitoris, for Mercedes’s nipple to fall from her parted lips as she cried. She jerked in his hold, alternately squeezing her thighs around his fingers and parting them to invite him to try again. He met Mercedes’s eye once more and she merely smiled enigmatically back, jerking her head as if to invite him to carry on, not to worry about her for the moment.

There was another item of interest drawing his curiosity, and as Annette writhed against him his impulse overcame his reluctance. He shifted around, taking advantage of his longer torso to cradle her such that his nose was pressed to the crown of her head and his erection pressed just at the juncture of her thighs, and wiggled his arm underneath and around so that he could grope experimentally at one of her budding breasts. That was enough to pry another, louder cry from her.

She angled her head downward, depriving him of any visual on her expression, and a faint edge of worry rose in him. “Is this good?” he murmured, and both of her hands found the one he’d cupped around her tit.

“Yeah,” she answered in an uneven breath. She tilted her head back, her eyes meeting his, and they were so dewy, so desperate, that he actually paused. Her next breath escaped on a whine. _“Daddy,”_ she moaned, and his dick twitched.

All his hesitation renewed itself at once when he paused to consider how lithe, how fragile she felt in his arms. His palm dwarfed her developing breast, two of his fingers extended could cover the entirety of her vulva; it felt good, almost too good, as if he were a recovering addict dipping his toes into his age-old temptation once again. Annette didn’t help, as far as this was concerned; her body seemed at once to rebel against everything within his mind with how she ground against his hand, trying to pull from him what he was suddenly so reluctant to give.

“Sylvain?” Mercedes ventured, reaching to stroke his hair. He exchanged a look with her as Annette writhed again, letting out a wanton, frustrated moan.

“Dad - Daddy -” she mumbled, and then she ground _down,_ her taut, barely-there butt briefly catching his cock between her cheeks. He breathed sharply in, his eyes fluttering shut as she asked, “Do you need help again?”

He didn’t have the breath to answer, not just yet. Mercedes seemed to detect something in him, because she pet his hair a little harder, brushing it back from his forehead as she said, “Yes, dear, I think he does.” His eyelids parted, finding muted purple eyes stained almost wine-colored in the dimness, “Though, if you’d like to continue nursing, I think there’s another way that you can help him than the ones I’ve demonstrated.”

All at once, Sylvain knew what she was suggesting. He was split with doubts and desperation, just on the cusp of outright refusal when she leaned closer to him, as steely as she was sweet when she continued, “It would help Mommy out, too.”

It was all he could do to curl his fingers into the damp fabric of Annette’s underwear, to deflate around a sigh to dispel his nerves. Annette lifted her head, sliding against the underside of his chin until he looked down. Her eyes flickered between his, searching, and she whispered, “Are you okay?”

From this vantage point, he could see all down her body. He could see where fabric bunched around his hand where it curled around her, he could see the pale shapes of her bare legs, and he could see the start of subtle definition at her chin, the full curve of her lips. But above all, all the various contrasting, conflicting information pressing at him from all sides, he could see how utterly relaxed she was even then, even as concerned as she so clearly was.

She trusted them so deeply, it made his heart ache to consider. She offered herself so willingly, and he couldn’t bring himself to refuse.

Instead of answering in words, he craned his neck to kiss her temple, startling a giggle out of her, and at last moved his fingers over the warm, wet shape of her cunt. She sighed blissfully as he pulled her underwear to the side and dipped his fingers in, playing delightedly in her slick. Mercedes let out a pleased sound when Annette gasped. She grazed his hair, his jaw, his chin with reverent hands and tilted it back so that she could kiss his lips, letting him re-acquaint himself with the game they were playing.

“Would you like to make love to her, sweetheart?” she asked him, barely audible over Annette’s high moans, and he whined into her mouth.

He was helpless, utterly helpless - but not useless. Even in the stupor they’d pulled him into, he was empowered to carry out his function - and he did, in grinding his fingers into Annette’s vagina, in carefully pinching her nipple over her nightgown. Annette’s voice pitched higher as Mercedes worked her magic in his mouth, humming sweetly in contrast, and the sound - and _feel -_ of Annette’s orgasm rocked through him, almost pulling him over the edge as well.

Mercedes kissed wetly along his cheek as Annette shuddered herself into pieces in his arms, gripping whatever parts of him or of Mercedes that she could reach. Her voice escaped on every exhale, pathetic and wanting until her parents extracted themselves from each other and tended to her each in their own ways: Sylvain by curling around her again, Mercedes by hushing her and guiding her mouth to her nipple once more.

“There you are,” Mercedes murmured, as collected as ever even with Sylvain’s saliva glistening on her lip. “Would you like a moment, or are you ready for Daddy to help himself?”

Rather than parting from Mercedes’s breast, Annette groped backward, eliciting a half-excited, half-nervous laugh when she found his hip and pulled with her understated strength. Sylvain could hear the mirth in his own voice when he said “Okay, okay,” pushing himself closer, weaving one arm around her waist and reaching for his waistband with the other.

He and Annette were tangled so close by now that his own bodily sensations and hers seemed to blur together; her faint hummingbird heartbeat fluttered against his chest as he pushed his cock between her legs, groaning even at that much contact. He held still for a moment, just savoring the heat there, wondering to himself whether it even _would_ fit. He was no monster the way their king was, but…

Annette glanced up at him as if she was worried that he was growing preoccupied again and he smiled against her hair, brushing lovingly at her side. “Just savoring the moment, sweetheart,” he murmured, and Mercedes let out a low, approving sound. He moved that same hand lower then, pulling her panties aside before adjusting his hips.

He could feel from the first touch just how wet she was; it was enough to make him groan, dip his cockhead into that delicious slick and just rub up and down her slit. Her breath was catching again, half-smothered into Mercedes’s breast. He could have spent the whole night just teasing her, making her small body writhe in his arms, coaxing heated sounds out of her throat until she didn’t have the breath to scream, only to whimper.

But Mercedes shifted, rubbing her thighs together oh-so-subtly, and Sylvain took note; she was as eager and wanting as Annette, as desperate to see her daughter fucked open as he was. He parted Annette’s folds with his fingers, guiding his cock between them and sending a pointed glance at Mercedes as he did.

It was so rare, seeing her come undone without so much as a single touch, but Annette’s first whole-body twitch made her flinch. Sylvain rolled his hips at a luxuriantly slow pace, watching Mercedes’s eyes grow heavy-lidded, her cheeks grow uncharacteristically red, her hand flicker up as if to cover her mouth before retreating downwards to press between her thighs. Her gaze did meet his for split-second intervals, but her focus was clearly on Annette, who was still quivering under his palms.

In fact, she was herself uncharacteristically quiet if only from the fact that her mouth was still covering Mercedes’s nipple, grounding herself with whatever tools she still had at her disposal. Her closest hand gripped at Mercedes _hard,_ enough that for the first time ever Sylvain wondered whether she’d bruise her, and he reached for it, satisfied just for the fact that he was sheathed inside for the moment. He massaged gently at her palm until her fingers relaxed their grip and curled, instead, around his.

“Okay, Annie?” he asked. She released a long, drawn-out sound, and he waited, comforting her with his entire being, rubbing at her stomach and squeezing her hand and kissing every part of her body that he could reach. Mercedes gasped and in the periphery of his vision he saw how she humped her own hand, caving to her own desperation. For the first time since Annette’s arrival - indeed, even since marrying Mercedes - he felt an odd sense of calm, an instinctual reaction that told him he had to take charge.

What an odd time, he thought, to finally feel like a proper father.

He kissed Annette on the shell of her ear and whispered, “I won’t start until you’re okay.”

She seized against him, hissed out of her nose, and squeezed his hand. “‘M okay,” she mumbled around her mouthful, and Mercedes gasped anew.

That was enough for him. He held tight to her hand, kept his arm curled around her, and pulled his hips back, drawing slowly out of her and feeling every inch of her wet heat retreating as both women whined. Annette finally released Mercedes when he thrust in, milk spilling onto their sheets without a hint of care while he settled into a rhythm. Annette pushed her head between Mercedes’s breasts and he could see indentations, bite marks, around the areola she’d attatched herself so firmly to.

Her hand spasmed around his. He didn’t let go.

Annette’s screams weren’t as loud as they’d been when Mercedes had eaten her out, but they were no less sweet for it. He rolled into her with heat gathering in all the best parts of him, driven by how her breaths set the whole of her stomach collapsing and expanding with the weight of them. He kissed the back of her head and felt hair tickle his face as her plaits at last came undone, moaning reverently into her sweet scent. She was craning her neck back now, arching with the entire line of her spine.

Mercedes met her halfway - the two exchanged one brief, breathless kiss, then another, then another. Sylvain watched them with half-open eyes, alternating between viewing the pair and falling back on listening. Annette was louder, but Mercedes was a familiar, grounding backing vocal, supporting Annette’s higher tones.

He knew Annette loved to sing - perhaps he could convince the pair to perform a duet at the next ball. They sounded so wonderful together.

Her grip loosened and he at last let go. Her hand fell forward, tangling in Mercedes’s nightgown alongside the other while he groped downward, cupping the curve of her thigh before pressing his thumb into the crease where it met her cunt, savoring the muted impact of his hips meeting hers over and over again. He longed to draw it out, to carry on pounding harder while her slick clung to his balls, smeared down her thighs, and bathed them all in her tantalizing scent.

She jerked on his next thrust, pulsing around him. Her lips staggered over her mother’s, connected again, and then fell away once more as she keened _“Daddy”_ and rutted into his movements. If Mercedes minded the loss of touch, she didn’t show it, only nuzzled into Annette’s hair and uttered a blissful, doting, wordless sound.

Annette’s legs seized, and that was his first clue. Then she threw her head back, her mouth wide, panting, each wanton breath escalating in pitch, and he felt her thighs twitch. He breathed into her space, bowing his head to feel her gasps against his skin as he huffed, “‘S okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you.”

The sound she made as she came was more of a squeak than a scream, high in pitch but cut off all too quickly and dying out into a lower, drawn-out noise. Her legs bent, then straightened, curling into him then pulling away. Her writhing was so delicious, so enthralling that he tipped over the edge too, spilling half his load into her before he clumsily retreated and released the rest over her thighs. This pulled a new sound out of her, half curious and half, in a humorous way, faintly disgusted.

He’d been tired before, so tired that he’d fallen asleep on his horse and let it carry him home. He’d returned from battles and slept for days afterward, overwhelmed by mingled fatigue and horror.

He’d never felt quite so contented in his exhaustion, not like this. Sylvain hardly even realized his eyelids had closed until he heard, rather than saw, Mercedes continuing to pant, felt Annette shifting in his arms as if trying to escape. He relinquished his hold before he managed to pry his eyes open and watched Annette wriggling weakly toward Mercedes, who had rolled onto her back and was gasping into her own palm, rutting upward into her touch.

Annette tucked her hair behind her ear before leaning down, kissing at Mercedes’s brow, down over her cheekbone and over her fingers. She kissed where Mercedes’s mouth should have been and then pried her hand away to kiss it properly.

His cum was dripping visibly down the backs of her thighs, and he wished, more than anything, that he could save this mental image forever and ever.

Mercedes’s hips twitched upward, then fell. She moaned into Annette’s mouth, her eyebrows tented, completely unraveled in a way he’d rarely seen from her.

Sylvain could hardly believe he’d been so blessed. They were beautiful together, just the two of them, Annette draping herself over Mercedes as they exchanged a loving, intimate look. It couldn’t possibly get better than this.

But then - then Annette turned her head, offering him a sleepy smile and an outstretched hand, and he thought of Mercedes’s words earlier. There was no hatred or fear in that look - only an insistent pull, one that lured him in, kissed his cheeks and his lips as they all tangled together again.

“You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for,” Mercedes told him as they all sank, bordering on sleep.

But the anxiety had a voice, too, and when Mercedes’s and Annette’s breathing leveled out into long, slow draws, pulling him down with them, it asked him, Well? 

And what are you going to do now?

* * *

His study was dim when he entered it, the sunset pouring in through the blinds hardly enough to illuminate the spines of his bookshelves across the room. His eye caught on a little slope of red hair peeking above the back of the couch and he issued a long-suffering sigh, finally getting Annette to look up and back at him.

“And how many times has your mother given you the ‘reading in the dark’ lecture this week?” he teased, pausing on his way over to turn one of the lamps. Annette let out a deflated, defeated noise.

“I was busy!”

“Too busy for cake?” he gasped, holding his trophy aloft, and Annette’s eyes, predictably, followed it. “Huh. Guess it was a wasted effort, then. All mine!”

“No!” Annette cried, moving to her knees as he made a show of picking the fork up off the plate. She struggled on her way off of her seat, teetering on unsteady legs as she rounded the corner. The reason for her difficulty was made immediately apparent as she emerged; he should have been used to it by then, but he still felt a swell of pride at the sight of her rounded, pregnant belly.

He held the plate up even higher then, grinning smugly down at her. “Kissing tax season,” he declared, and she cutely pursed her lips. 

“This is extortion.”

“Big word for a little girl,” he teased, yielding to her grip as she pulled him down for a kiss. She rested her forehead against his upon finishing, trying to hold her pout firm but dissolving into a helpless giggle at a wink from him.

“I - you’re lucky - can I have my cake now?” she faltered, struggling to curb her good humor. He forfeited the prize with a smile and a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then straightened as she pulled away, seemingly content. She made her way back to the couch and he followed, sparing a glance toward Mercedes when she entered the room behind them.

“We missed you at teatime, Annie,” Mercedes said, breezing up to them and rounding the couch as if to join them. Sylvain sat next to Annette, suppressing a chuckle when Mercedes gasped, “Goodness, you’ve practically taken up the whole thing!”

“Wha - I’m not _that_ big yet!” Annette insisted, holding her stomach protectively.

“I think she means the books, kittycat,” Sylvain countered, reaching over to ruffle her hair. Annette ducked her head before he reached his goal, seemingly out of shame as much as avoidance.

“Right! Oh, I’m sorry,” she fretted, setting to the task of gathering up her reading materials. Sylvain glanced at them and raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t know I had any books about parenting,” he observed. Annette set the stack on the end table with her cake and scooted over, inviting Mercedes to sit on her other side.

“I found some for her,” Mercedes explained, sitting at last. She touched Annette’s shoulder with a warm look. “Annette was feeling a little nervous.”

Annette played with her hair, not quite looking at him. He’d grown to understand, by then, that there were certain things she didn’t feel as capable of admitting to him, not so much because she didn’t feel comfortable as much as other factors. Mercedes was the closest confidant she’d ever had, for one, and as it happened the late Baron Dominic hadn’t been the most attentive father.

Sylvain understood it better, now. It made it more rewarding when she _did_ trust him, and at the glance she snuck out of the corner of her eye, he offered her a reassuring smile.

“C’mon, Annette,” he murmured, gently brushing her hair back from her face, “I promise - if I can do it, so can you.”

“Wh - but you’re - _Dad,”_ she spluttered, rounding on him with a disbelieving look. “You’re a natural! You’ve been incredible from the first day. I should know.”

It was a simple statement, but one that touched him to his very core. He opened his mouth, but he could hardly bring himself to speak - a look exchanged with Mercedes, who looked proud enough to burst, only made him choke up more.

In lieu of speaking, he settled on leaning forward, wrapping his arms around her and scooping her up into his lap, heedless of the squawk of surprise he incited. “Your mother’s right,” he ribbed, “you’re taking up too much space.”

“What?!”

“You’re too big,” he said simply, nuzzling into her hair, caressing her with every available part of him. “Way too big.”

Annette shifted as if she were still about to offer some objection, but seemed to give up. She leaned into his shoulder with a defeated sigh, placing her hand over his on her belly.

Mercedes shifted over then, leaning on his opposite shoulder. She sighed into a laugh, then touched both of their hands. Sylvain turned his head, only faintly startled to find Mercedes’s expression brimming with emotion.

She smiled at him, then whispered, as if to him alone, “Thank you. For everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just you wait 'til Annette grows up a little and starts being courted by that Fraldarius kid MerSyl are gonna have a field day with him
> 
> [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/glittergluwu)


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